Chemistry

In 2012 chemical researchers reported progress in developing self-healing materials—materials that have the property of being able to repair themselves and become fully functional again after experiencing some kind of damage, such as a scratch or a fracture. Many biological tissues are naturally self-healing. For example, if the skin on a finger is cut, the body begins to rebuild the tissue and the skin heals. What if synthetic materials could be manufactured to do this as well? Over time, materials tend to degrade from a variety of causes, ranging from sunlight exposure to wear and tear. Eventually, degraded material can lead to the failure of many kinds of products.

At present, structures and machine components are designed to withstand a certain amount of mechanical damage. In the future, materials that could, on their own, repair themselves could remain in service for a longer period, improve safety, and reduce maintenance costs. Self-healing would be especially valuable for objects that could not otherwise be repaired (such as electronic circuit boards and many plastic products) or that would be difficult to access (such as an implanted medical device, a rover on Mars, or an instrument placed deep in the ocean).

The overall processes that take place in any kind of self-healing material are similar. The material contains a substance that can be converted into a mobile phase such as a liquid or a gel. The conversion is triggered by the formation of cracks or breaks in the material or by means of an externally applied stimulus. The mobile phase transports the healing medium to the site of the damage, and repair of the material then occurs by a physical interaction or a chemical reaction that re-forms chemical bonds to fill in the affected area. Once the damage has been healed, the mobile phase becomes solid, restoring the physical and mechanical properties of the material. Self-healing materials can be made of polymers, ceramics, or metals. Ceramics and metals require very high temperatures, from 600 to 800 °C (1,112 to 1,472 °F), for self-healing. Self-healing in polymers can take place at much lower temperatures, and, consequently, most research being conducted in self-healing materials concerns polymers.

Self-healing materials in which the repair process is initiated internally are referred to as autonomic. Nonautonomic self-healing must be initiated externally, such as by applying heat or light. Self-healing materials can also be classed as extrinsic or intrinsic. Extrinsic materials have a distinct healing agent, which is typically embedded within the material. An example would be a self-healing material that contains minute capsules filled with a catalyst that promotes self-healing. Cracks that form may burst open some of the capsules, and the released catalyst can then repolymerize the damaged material. In contrast, an intrinsic self-healing material functions as its own healing agent. This type of material may reseal itself through physical interactions at the place of damage, such as by forming new chemical bonds when rubbing occurs along the surface of a crack. For many potential applications, intrinsic self-healing materials would be advantageous, but they present some of the greatest challenges for development.

Recent research has addressed some of the most common limitations of self-healing polymers developed to date, including the inability of the self-healing process to take place in the presence of water, the need for heat to activate the healing process, and the lack of intrinsic self-healing materials. Although most research on self-healing materials has been conducted since the beginning of the 21st century, a report published in January 2012 by Peiwen Zheng and Thomas J. McCarthy from the University of Massachusetts built on largely forgotten studies made in the 1950s in identifying self-healing properties of a silicone polymer. Zheng and McCarthy were examining other properties of the polymer when they found that it could self-heal under mild heating. The researchers demonstrated this property by slicing a cylinder of material in two and then placing the newly exposed faces against each other. The cut healed so well that it was difficult to see where it had been. The mechanism behind the healing process involved a negatively charged polymerization initiator, which caused the siloxane material to form molecular chains. Embedded in the polymer, the initiator acts only when the ends of the chains are separated from each other and the temperature is raised slightly. The material thus exhibited nonautonomic extrinsic self-healing.

This polymer, like many other self-healing polymers, cannot self-heal in the presence of water because it is hydrophobic. Given the ubiquitous presence of moisture in the environment, this property would hinder its use for everyday applications. In a study published in early 2012, Shyni Varghese and co-workers at the University of California, San Diego, and the National Chemical Laboratory in Pune, India, showed that polymers that have flexible side arms with both hydrophobic and hydrophilic parts can self-heal in water. The materials can be easily made, and their behaviour can be modified by controlling the acidity of the water solution. The ability to incorporate hydrophilic components into a self-healing polymer could therefore make self-healing materials available for use in a greater range of environments and applications.

Most known healing materials are nonautonomic and require heat as their external energy source. A new type of plastic reported in 2011 by Christoph Weder from the University of Fribourg, Switz., and co-workers instead uses light to initiate self-healing. In the material they investigated, shining ultraviolet light on the surface breaks metal-polymer bonds in long polymer chains. The resulting smaller pieces of the polymer are then able to flow into a damaged area of the surface, such as a fracture. Upon cooling, the small molecular pieces reassemble into the larger polymer chains, restoring the original material. In the future it may be possible to design the polymer for use in such materials as varnishes and plastic finishes so that it absorbs light only at locations where there is a scratch or defect.

In work to develop a self-healing polymer that does not need an external stimulus such as heat or light for self-healing, Hideyuki Otsuka and co-workers at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan, reported in late 2011 on a polymer gel whose cut surfaces can reseal when placed in contact with each other even after the cut surfaces have been kept apart for as long as several days. The self-healing takes place with the application of the organic solvent dimethylfuran to reform bonds between molecular cross-linkages and involves the reaction of arylbenzofuranone radicals in the material. The reaction can be repeated multiple times, unlike other self-healing processes that cannot be repeated once the healing agent has been used up.

There are few known examples of intrinsic self-healing materials. However, in 2012 Zhibin Guan and co-workers at the University of California, Irvine, described the synthesis of a new such material, called a hydrogen-bonding brush polymer. It can easily break and re-form bonds on a molecular scale but in bulk is very robust and strong. As a result, the material self-assembles into stiff and soft layers that give both strength and elasticity to the polymer. Since no solvents or healing agents are required for its self-healing, it has potential for use in a large variety of applications.

The development of self-healing materials still has a long way to go before such materials become commercially available. Nevertheless, the amount of research in the field is expanding rapidly, and as the technology improves in the coming years, it promises to have an impact on daily lives.

Click anywhere inside the article to add text or insert superscripts, subscripts, and special characters.
You can also highlight a section and use the tools in this bar to modify existing content:

Add links to related Britannica articles!
You can double-click any word or highlight a word or phrase in the text below and then select an article from the search box.
Or, simply highlight a word or phrase in the article, then enter the article name or term you'd like to link to in the search box below, and select from the list of results.

Note: we do not allow links to external resources in editor.
Please click the Web sites link for this article to add citations for
external Web sites.